Audience members arriving at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday night to see Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company were treated to an exuberant preshow performance in which dance protested dance. Approximately 60 protesters crowded inside an enclosure of police barricades on the sidewalk: some waved Palestinian flags, some brandished signs proclaiming “Don’t dance around apartheid,” while others danced the dabke, a traditional Arabic communal dance.

The protest is the latest in what has become almost expected opposition to Batsheva, one of Israel’s most well-known cultural exports. The event was organized by Adalah-NY, part of the global BDS movement to isolate Israel economically, academically and culturally.